


Pulse

by PunkHazard



Series: Synaesthesia [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 09:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14041455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: The first thing Genji's new neighbor does is press her forehead against the glass between their quarantined wards.





	Pulse

The first thing Genji's new neighbor does is press her forehead against the glass between their quarantined wards. 

He hadn't known he'd be getting a roommate, and the thought of someone watching him stumble over his own feet as he acclimates to the cybernetics is absolutely mortifying; he's had more than enough of scientists gawking and prodding at him. But between reaching for the button to darken the window and actually looking at the stranger, Genji pauses. 

She can't be more than a teenager-- lanky build, wild hair, practically swimming in her oversized scrubs. Eyes closed.

Genji shifts, slowly pushing himself to his feet and shambling to the partition to press his metal hand against the glass over her nose. He waits for her to look-- and leap backwards away from the window when she finally sees her audience of one. 

_Oh,_ she says, flickering, her voice carrying faintly through the glass, _hiya!_

Just before she blinks entirely out of sight, she blows a breath against the glass to fog it and draws a smiley-face.

* * *

Later that day, Dr. Ziegler drops in for her usual checkup. She has him sit in the computer chair as she perches on the edge of his desk, running diagnostics through the tablet in her hands. "I'm so sorry we didn't warn you, Genji." Mercy sighs, tapping the screen to decrypt a cluster of sensory data. "We weren't sure if the facility could even contain Lena, but we would have alerted you immediately had we known the experiment was a success."

Genji looks over his shoulder, slowly so as not to jostle the cables attached to the ports on his neck. "Facility?"

"Yes!" Mercy's hand rests briefly at the base of his skull, brushing aside tubes to inspect their connections. "Winston spent several weeks building it, but he will need more time to develop the chronal stabilizer."

Genji leans forward and breathes when prompted, trying to recall when he had seen Winston at work in the adjacent room.

* * *

He has good days and bad. Some days Genji can bring himself to play the games available to him-- Pong, or Picross, Sudoku. Minecraft. Nothing that would strain his still-healing bionic connectors, but challenging enough to keep him entertained for hours at a time. It doesn't measure up to drinking at a nightclub and taking someone home, but on good days, it manages to occupy his mind.

On bad days, it's almost beyond his ability to be awake. 

The confines of his bed suffocate him with its crisp sterility, but consciousness means he can only process the pain, the nightmares that had driven him from sleep, the memory of Hanzo's face in all its anguished calm. The room itself is worse, spartan in its monochrome utility. There's no escape from the knowledge of his ruined body, no reprieve from the mantra of 'how could I have known?' that dominates every waking thought. 

Bad days, he can barely tolerate Mercy's (otherwise very welcome) presence. The faint scent of her lotion can reach even his mostly useless nose, the squeak of rubber gloves, the cool sting of her stethoscope on what remains of his skin are almost too much to bear, overloading the processors that have taken over so many of his vital functions and sensory inputs. Bad days, he can barely move for how much he wishes he were someone else.

* * *

Lena appears again on a very bad day, flickering into the finished ward beside Genji's and staying there for nearly an hour. In the first ten minutes she curls up on the corner of her bed, blind to the transparent window between them, her shoulders quivering as she sobs into her crossed arms. From relief at a moment of stability or fear of losing it again, Genji doesn't know and he doesn't ask.

Curiosity forces him to stand, ignoring every protest his mind and body try to lobby, and rap on their shared window. However bad of a day he's having, hers certainly looks worse.

It takes her a moment to look up, another of frantically scrubbing at her eyes before she meets his and flashes him a watery smile. Genji briefly considers doing the same but with his jaw in tatters, a portion of his upper lip missing altogether, he decides not to show her more of his teeth than absolutely necessary. 

She says something, hiccups, expression crumbling again when he can only shake his head. No, he can't hear.

Scrambling out of bed, Tracer swipes up a tablet, typing on it as she approaches the window. She presses it against the glass. 

_is it tuesday for you too??_

Genji eyes the timestamp on the top right corner of the tablet screen and nods.

Lena beams. She motions at him to pick up his own tablet, add her on a messaging app, and promises to write.

* * *

_i saw you not thirty seconds ago, actually_

Genji kicks back in his seat, feet on the desk in front of him. He's having a good day. Dr. Ziegler had just given him positive feedback on his cybernetic interfaces, his vitals; it's been a week since his last medical emergency and Mercy has finally done a few cosmetic procedures that he's been asking for. He'll never be the same as he was, but it's a step up from looking like half his face had been torn off. It's been nearly three days since he last saw Tracer and she'd spent the whole fifteen minutes installing a MOBA onto both their tablets to play with him.

She boots up the app, humming, and immediately invites him to a match. 

Genji accepts, and spends the next hour having his ass handily served back to him. He rarely sends messages, preferring to acknowledge hers with a gesture or an expression, but he types: _were you always good at mobas?_

_i saw you thirty seconds ago in three weeks. lots of good tips for beating you today_

Whatever he's done to piss off his future self, Genji decides, it better be worth the revenge.

* * *

"Genji," Lena tells him, "I hope you know that this is _really_ weird."

She had slightly surprised Winston with a request to install an intercom unit between the quarantined wards, but he'd done it without much questioning. Winston had made sure to confirm with Genji first, looking skeptical at his brisk acceptance, but it's certainly easier than typing every exchange. 

Still, the loss of a record of their conversations had been a blow to Lena's sense of continuity _and_ Genji's memory of each interaction. He still prefers text to the artificial voice, but after several reviews, he'd found that his replies never did provide much information or context; Lena always did do most of the talking. 

_trust me,_ Genji types back, _i deserve it._

His choices became clear to him in the preceding weeks: past selves had committed a series of small infractions against his future selves, the likes of which include forgetting to charge the tablet and turning off all alerts, staying up far too late to be advisable on multiple nights, and misplacing a tube of anti-itching cream for his remaining arm.

"Well," Lena sighs, jotting down the meticulous list of abilities and strategies he'd used on that day three weeks ago, "it's still not normal to send me to bully yourself."

Regardless, they play a few practice rounds before she flickers out of the current time.

* * *

She still flashes in and out-- sometimes with so little warning or staying power that Genji barely registers her presence before she's gone again. Even the briefest appearance can send scientists rushing into the observation bay, and most times her stays don't even last long enough for Winston to get from his lab to the ward. 

One time she hangs around just long enough to bounce a paper ball off his temple, through the newly-retractable window between their sections.

"No way!" Lena laughs, miming with her hands a glass panel in her way, "How'd you get this thing taken down?"

There's no time for him to grab his tablet and type, so Genji sits up, clears his throat and haltingly tells her, "Immune system cyberization." 

She grins. "No more quarantine! Wow," she adds, voice and figure fading out, "we're gonna have a blast."

* * *

Her appearances have become both less frequent, and less stable. Winston spends hours at a time in Tracer's ward, waiting for her to appear. Any moment not spent tinkering with the harness he'd designed for her is spent tapping away at his computer, trying to track her through the timestream-- and the few times they manage to be in the same place at the same time, neither of them can manage to get the chronal accelerator on before she's gone again.

Winston's once-glossy fur has dulled from the long hours and irregular meals, and the infrequent conversations he has with Genji are primarily to wonder when she might appear again. The situation for Lena is worsening-- that much is obvious. Genji can hear Winston wondering to Mercy, sometimes, if he had taken too long to build the accelerator.

"Leave the harness," Genji says one time as Winston's packing up to leave. "If she appears again, I can activate it."

Genji isn't accustomed to reading a gorilla's expressions, but he can really only describe Winston's as 'tempted'. "You need to sleep," the scientist murmurs, scratching his chin.

"Don't you need to focus on the field stabilizer?" Rolling his shoulders, Genji lets himself into Lena's ward and picks up the clunky harness, perching on the edge of her desk. "If I can't catch her, I do not think you can."

The last few days of chasing her unstable, flickering form around the quarantine area come back to Winston and he gives in with a sigh. "Alright," he says, motioning for the device. "I'll show you how it works."

* * *

The first time Genji tries to get the harness on Tracer, he doesn't make it to her before she's out of reach again, immaterial, only an echo of her voice where she had stood. The second time he's prepared, lobbing all fifteen kilograms of the chronal accelerator at her as she fades in and out of existence. 

He's almost positive he's failed but the device hits her in the chest, knocks her back, and lands in her lap. 

She looks up at him, her hands coming to rest on a wide, pliable strap. "Genji?"

Genji darts forward, stumbling over his own feet and painfully jostling a few cables as he approaches to help her put it on. "Winston will be here soon," he assures her, helping her to her feet. 

"Good thing, too," Tracer chirps, adjusting the straps over her shoulders. Her expression is bright, but brittle. "I've gotta thank him! We're finally comin' up on the finish line."

"Both of us have a long way to go," Genji answers, extending his arms to pre-empt the inevitable leap into them, "but it's nice to have you back." 

He pretends not to hear her sniffle, pulling her tightly against his chest.

"Genji," Tracer whispers after an acceptably long squeeze, wiping her nose on the back of her hand, "I really thought I was done for." 

"Not," Genji says, very seriously, "before I teach you how to play Fighters of the Storm."


End file.
